An Interview with Julian Assange & some cables on India by WikiLeaks

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Internet is a great spying machine: Julian Assange::


Dubbing the internet as the world's greatest spying machine, the co-founder of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks Jullian Assange said that it's an obstacle to free speech, according to a media report.

Addressing a group of students at Cambridge University, Assange said that the web could allow greater government transparency and better co-operation between activists, the Guardian reported. However, he added, that it also gave authorities their best ever opportunity to monitor and catch dissidents.

"While the Internet has in some ways an ability to let us know to an unprecedented level what government is doing, and to let us co-operate with each other to hold repressive governments and repressive corporations to account, it is also the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen," the Guardian quoted Assange as saying.

"It [the web] is not a technology that favours freedom of speech. It is not a technology that favours human rights. It is not a technology that favours civil life. Rather it is a technology that can be used to set up a totalitarian spying regime, the likes of which we have never seen," he said.

"Or, on the other hand, taken by us, taken by activists, and taken by all those who want a different trajectory for the technological world, it can be something we all hope for," he added.

According to the former computer hacker, cables released by WikiLeaks played a key role in both fomenting unrest in the Middle East and forcing the U.S. government not to back former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The event was reportedly well attended with students, but the university decided to keep it out of media coverage.

WikiLeaks' U.S. embassy cables related to India are currently being published in the Indian news media. Similar leaks in the western news media had created a stir recently.
Some Cables related to India being published in India..

1. Wikileaks: BJP Demand Government's Resignation-(Yahoo News)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday demanded the 'immediate' resignation of the Manmohan Singh government in the wake of the revelations in leaked US diplomatic cables that payoffs had been made to MPs to ensure majority in confidence vote in 2008.

2.WikiLeaks: Congress bought MPs for trust vote over nuclear deal-(NDTV)

A WikiLeaks cable from a US diplomat in India dated 2008 suggests that the Congress bought MPs to survive its crucial vote of confidence over the government's nuclear deal with the US.The cable says that Nachiketa Kapur, described as the political aide of Congress leader Satish Sharma, told a US embassy employee that four MPs from Ajit Singh's party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, were paid Rs. 10 crore each by the Congress.

3. WikiLeaks: Indian names in Swiss bank disclosure to WikiLeaks?-(TOI)

Details of Swiss bank accounts given to WikiLeaks by private banker-turned-whistleblower Rudolf Elmer has a few Indian names.The data revealed names of Indian entities including two apparently linked firms — Annapurna Convertible and Anna Investments — and two individuals Asad Ali Khan and Zahida Ali Khan.

and many more.......


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